


take the weight off my shoulders (i can't bear it)

by forbiddenquill



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/F, it turned out to be a lot sadder, this was supposed to be happy and shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-23
Updated: 2015-03-23
Packaged: 2018-03-19 06:08:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3599259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forbiddenquill/pseuds/forbiddenquill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I don’t want them to see how broken I am,” Clarke murmurs and her voice is filled with barely concealed anguish and pain.</p>
<p>“We are all broken,” Lexa fiercely says, meeting her gaze, “and that is more reason to be whole.”</p>
<p>(or: the one where Lexa tries to convince Clarke to stay.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	take the weight off my shoulders (i can't bear it)

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be happy and shit. I don't know what happened. I apologize.
> 
> My version of this post: http://heyasscroft.tumblr.com/post/114271354868/gostorain-ohmightysmiter-clarke-having-a

Clarke raises her head when she hears an animal whining somewhere underneath her. Uncrossing her arms and slipping her jacket back in place, she glances at the ground below, her eyes widening at the sight of a small deer slowly bleeding out against the roots. She’d taken refuge on one of the highest tree she could find, expecting a bit of solace from any grounder or animal looking for food and she thinks that it’s definitely strange for a deer to have stumbled into her particular hiding spot.

The sun has risen far into the sky when Clarke woke and she can feel the heat against her back as she cautiously grips the bark of the tree, her feet moving clumsily against footholds. Climbing down trees is a lot harder than climbing them and she grits her teeth when the branch she’s currently gripping nearly breaks off. When she’s at a safe distance to jump down, she does so while bending her knees. The impact throws the breath off her lungs but she stumbles to her feet, walking towards the animal whose eyes have trained on her, fear and panic evident in the wide pupils.

“It’s okay,” she murmurs, raising her hands as she approaches. She didn’t take much from camp when she left but she’s smart enough to smuggle in a small, handy knife to protect herself from any forms of danger. Kneeling in front of the wounded animal, she checks the damage.

There’s a gash against the deer’s chest, too clean cut to be from a bigger predator. Clarke frowns before looking up and gazing around the forest, her eyes accustomed to the green and brown hues of the territory. She doesn’t know what she expects to find but there’s nothing around her, well—nothing that she can currently spot at this moment. She reluctantly tears her eyes away and looks back at the deer again. It’s nearing death already and Clarke feels something in her chest tightens when she remembers the last time she saw death.

(Adult and children alike, lying flat on the ground and teetering on the table, radiation clear on the blisters against their skins.)

( _Their_  blood on Clarke’s hands.)

“ _Yu gonplei ste odon_ ,” Clarke murmurs, the language foreign against her tongue. It seems fitting, since this is not her world and she merely fell into it. She digs her knife into the deer’s vital vein and it shakes, shudders before finally going still. Its blood is sticky against her fingers and she knows better than to try and wipe it off.

(Nothing is pure in this world anymore.)

She stands, staring at the red against her fingernails. She remembers scrubbing Finn’s blood and shudders, her stomach flipping. Then she starts moving again, not knowing where to go but knowing that she’d rather go anywhere than stay in one place.

.

The forest is surprisingly easy to move through. She expected random gorilla attacks, more mutant animals coming in to tear the flesh off her face, rogue grounders coming in to kill her for letting that missile hit Ton DC. She does not expect the silence, her footsteps the only thing making occasional noises against large branches; she does not expect the calm waters whenever she finds a lake or a pond or a river; she does not expect being so isolated and at peace. It seems wrong somehow, especially after what she has done, after the bloodshed on her hands.

She moves through the forest and is not disturbed. It’s getting to her, especially when she climbs trees and ponders for something to move or for a bush to shake. There is nothing. Once or twice, she catches sight of an animal dying amidst the ground, neck bleeding and nearing death already. She ends their misery, whispering the words of the tree people as she moves to the next joint of the forest.

Death seems to follow her around. First, her father. Then Wells. Finn. Ton DC. Mount Weather.

(She wonders if this is what it means to be a leader.)

(She thinks about Lexa more than she likes to admit.)

Her entire being burns at the thought of living through all of this, after everything she’s done. She’s often pulled out her gun, rusty with lack of usage, and placed the nuzzle against her forehead, trying to see if she has the guts to pull the trigger. Those moments often come when she’s alone or when she misses her mother, Raven, Bellamy, Octavia and the surviving 40, moments where she’s weak and she doesn’t know what to do with herself.

(She’s going to die out here alone but not by her hand. There is no strength or weakness there, just _cowardice_.)

Bellamy was sweet to offer her forgiveness but she can’t accept the forgiveness of others when she can’t even forgive herself, can hardly look at herself in the reflection of the water she drinks from, can hardly stand living in her own skin with the blood drying against her hands.

( _This is what it means to be a leader, Clarke_ ; Lexa told her, all those nights ago, eyes wide and focused, determination plain in the hard, clipped way she spoke.  _Sometimes you have to look into the eyes of your warriors and say,_ ‘Go die for me.’)

But they weren’t her warriors.

(They weren’t her warriors.)

.

She finds another dead animal by the riverside ten days after she’s left Camp Jaha. After spending nights tossing and turning, Clarke has come to the realization that she’s been on earth for 61 days now. And in a matter of those days, she has lost her best friend, burned 300 grounders, lost her people over and over again, killed Finn, let another 250 burn for a plan that fell apart in the end, and killed more than 300 Mountain Men with a lever that destroyed her innocence. When she was in the Ark, she pictured earth to be a beautiful land filled with tall trees and deep oceans; an abandoned planet, no life left. And now it’s just a place meant to take whatever is left of your humanity.

(Everything that Clarke touches _dies_ )

She’s surprised to find the animal, however. It’s small in death and Clarke thinks that it looks a bit like the gorilla that chased her and Lexa through the forest. (Her throat closes at the thought of the commander but she forces it down.) She kneels in front of it, wondering if it’s a baby or just a miniature sized monkey.

It’s a fresh kill, if the slowly streaming blood is anything to get by. Her expert hand reaches out to assess the damage and she frowns when she realizes that it’s throat has been cut, too cleanly to be from a regular animal with sharp claws. No, this looks like the work for a knife, a work of a human being. The monkey’s eyes are wide open, glazed and Clarke closes them.

There’s blood against her fingers. She wonders if they’ll ever be clean.

“ _Yu gonplei ste odon_ ,” she echoes. She doesn’t know why she says it; maybe she needs to hear her own voice again, maybe she needs to remember Finn and the rest of the people she’s killed, maybe—

Maybe she needs a bath.

She hasn’t showered since Mount Weather, which was more than 22 days ago. She’s so used to being dirty that she doesn’t realize that she must smell really terrible and that the scent of blood and the earth must follow her around. She has to wonder if the animals can smell it and if that’s the reason why nobody has bothered her.

_I am the bringer of death, destroyer of worlds_ —

“Stop,” she tells herself weakly. She stands, walking away from the monkey and heading over to the shore. She remembers Octavia jumping into the lake near their old camp, how foolish and naïve she was, how incredibly beautiful she looked in the waters, innocence still bright against her face. She remembers the present Octavia, the one with the war paint against her eyes, the one who’s hardened over time, and the one who swore to never forgive her for letting all those people burn.

She thinks that Octavia’s forgiven her for killing the Mountain Men, but never the grounders.

(Maybe Clarke can forgive herself too but she highly doubts it. She’s so used to the weight against her shoulders that if they are ever ripped off, she fears that she’ll just float away.)

Picking up a pebble from the ground, she throws it across the river. It barely skips and her hand drops. The water doesn’t look to be inhabited by any monster and she hardly knows how to swim. She’ll just stay on the edge, ready to jump at the slightest bit of provocation. That’s easier than staying in these dirty clothes ( _Grounder clothes_ , she thinks, Lexa _’s_ _clothes._ ) with blood still spattered against the front.

So she strips. She feels exposed, an easy target but after quickly scanning the area once more, she thinks that she’s alone. Besides, her gun is still active, has a few bullets left. And if she dies, at least that’ll be the end of it. She doesn’t really care anymore, doesn’t care if somebody’s willing to put a spear through her chest, doesn’t care if she dies. Just as long as it’s not by her hand.

There are many scars and bruises against her skin but she feels as if they are not enough.

When she’s disregarded her underwear, she hears something snapping behind her. Like a twig or a branch. And she doesn’t know why her first instinct is to jump into the water but she does and she hisses when she feels the cold against her skin. Her feet come in contact with the rocks underneath the surface and they’re slippery but good footholds. She whips around, her eyes looking for a visible figure and her heart jumps in her throat when she hears another snap of a twig, like a person stumbling through the forest drunk or heavily wounded.

She reaches into her bundle of clothes, fingers clumsily looking for the handle of her gun. She hears a low yell and then there’s more noise, like somebody’s rolling through the ground and hitting every bush or tree on the way down. Clarke finds the gun and raises it with her elbows locked and her aim focused straight on the trees. She doesn’t ignore the way her fingers are shaking.

(Maybe she does care, after all.)

When Lexa bursts through the forest and lands on her knees, Clarke nearly pulls the trigger.

“Holy _shit_ ,” Clarke hisses loudly, bending her legs and trying to cover her chest. She keeps her gun close however. Just because it’s Lexa and not some unknown predator doesn’t mean that Clarke won’t hesitate to shoot her.

(She’ll hesitate. She knows that she will.)

“What the hell, Lexa?” Clarke demands, sputtering out water just as Lexa is getting up to her feet. She isn’t wearing her war paint and her armor is light compared to her usual get up but she still looks fiercely— _embarrassed_?

“Clarke,” Lexa says, tongue clicking at the _K._ She grips the hilt of her sword tightly, looking at anywhere but her. With the tense jaw and the flaming cheeks, it doesn’t take long for Clarke to realize why Lexa stumbled in the first place.

“Oh my God, we are _not_ doing this here!” Her voice is scratchy from lack of use but her tone is loud enough for Lexa to flinch slightly. She turns her back on Lexa, submerging her head into the water and running her fingers through her hair. When she resurfaces, she feels a hundred times cleaner. Not better, but cleaner.

“Clarke, it is unwise to stay there—” Lexa starts to say but Clarke cuts her off,

“Keep an eye out for any predators.” She scrubs at the dirt under her fingernails and then wipes at her face, trying to clear off any dried blood. She talks while she works and she can tell that Lexa is watching her. “You’ve been following me, haven’t you?”

“Yes,” Lexa answers, straightforward as ever.

Clarke frowns as she sits against the rocks, reaching down to clean her legs. The water is blissfully cold and she leans her head back, sighing as the blood and the dirt is finally rinsed off from her skin. She twists her hair and curls it over to the left side of her neck, her fingers scratching for any residue. She hums under her breath and for the first time in a long while, she feels safe.

It has something to do with Lexa standing behind her.

“Don’t look,” Clarke barks as she twists around again. Lexa is quick to turn her back and Clarke’s lips twitch at how tense the commander’s shoulders are. She stands from the river, waterdrops dripping against her skin and into the ground. She doesn’t have much of a towel so she wrings out her hair, grabs her jacket and uses it to dry off. By the time she’s done, Lexa is still determinedly standing still and Clarke is grateful for that. She changes back into her clothes and then approaches Lexa cautiously.

“And now, don’t move,” Clarke murmurs, pressing the tip of her gun between Lexa’s shoulder blades once she’s close enough, “or else I’ll shoot you.”

Lexa’s shoulders relax. “Good,” she says, turning her face slightly, “I’d be more worried if you didn’t threaten me.”

“Do you _want_ me to shoot you?” Clarke asks, her finger hovering over the trigger.

“I want a lot of things from you, Clarke,” Lexa says calmly, raising her hands in a show of surrender, “but being shot in the back is far from it.”

“You didn’t have much trouble turning your back and leaving me to _die_ ,” Clarke spits and goddamnit, her fingers are fucking _shaking_ and she can’t do it—can’t bear to pull the trigger, can’t bear to kill the person who abandoned her when Clarke needed her the most, can’t bear to destroy the existence of someone who knows _exactly_ what she’s going through.

“I never wanted that,” Lexa says, looking away from her. Her jaw is tense. “I never wanted any of this to happen.”

“But it did,” Clarke snarls, digging the gun further in Lexa’s back.

Lexa is silent for a few more seconds. Then—

“Everyone knows who you are, Clarke.”

Clarke freezes. It’s a surprise she doesn’t pull the trigger right there. Heart thrashing wildly inside her chest, she forces herself to ask, “What are you talking about?”

"Clarke _kom skaikru_ ," Lexa says, her voice soft, "The girl who dropped from the sky and tore mountains apart. The girl who wore her heart on her sleeve and killed hundreds of men. The stories aren't pretty, Clarke, but they are true."

" _You—_ ” Clarke's face contorts and she struggles with what to say next but no words come out.

Instead, she drops her arm.

Lexa turns towards her, looking slightly surprised. She looks older, more mature and there are shadows under her eyes. Clarke supposes that she must look the same.

"If you hadn't left me behind, I wouldn't have torn Mount Weather apart," Clarke sneers.

"You ended a war, Clarke." Lexa's voice is gentle. "You did what you had to do."

Tears sting the back of Clarke's eyes. "They were innocent," she says and her throat nearly closes. "There were children, teenagers and people who _helped_ us and I let them all die. I let them suffer—and it's all my fault."

Lexa is facing her now, eyebrows drawn together. “You did what you had to do,” she repeats slowly, “It may not have been the best decision for everybody but your choice still stand. The duty to serve your people comes first, Clarke. That’s what it means to be a leader.”

Clarke bites her lower lip and then turns away. She doesn’t want to talk about this, especially not to Lexa. She closes her eyes briefly and it’s a mistake because she sees Level 5 again, with the bodies lying on the ground and leaning against the table, skin blistered and red, burning with radiation. She sees Jasper crying over Maya’s body, a child with a soccer ball near his feet, a couple reaching for each other across the dining table.

_Their_ blood on her hands.

“Why were you following me?” Clarke demands, her voice icy.

Lexa must sense her change because her voice is too soft when she speaks, “I had to know if you were safe.”

“You killed all those animals,” Clarke says.

“I did,” Lexa agrees.

“Why?”

“They would’ve lured bigger predators in,” Lexa answers calmly.

“How long?”

Lexa hesitates at this one, her eyes flickering to the side. Then she says, “I had my scouts positioned near your camp. Mount Weather is in ruins and I had hoped—” She stops, her words stumbling over each other. This is a first, _heda_ Lexa not knowing what to say and if Clarke wasn’t so pissed, she would’ve found it endearing.

She raises her eyebrows instead. “What?” she asks.

“I had hoped that the alliance would be rekindled,” Lexa answers and she can barely look at Clarke anymore. “It’s foolish for me to think so. I know I am not forgiven, Clarke and I am not asking for your forgiveness. I do not deserve it but—”

“Okay,” Clarke cuts in.

Lexa stops, her eyebrows furrowing. She shifts her weight slightly and Clarke ducks her head, sucking in a deep breath.

“I don’t understand,” Lexa murmurs.

“You can have your alliance,” Clarke says, “My people need your protection, your help. They don’t know this place as much as you do and I hope that you’ll do well to make sure that no more lives will be sacrificed.”

“Yes,” Lexa says but her voice is hard. _She knows what I’m asking for_ , Clarke realizes and a rush of nostalgia washes over her. Lexa knows what she’s going through because she’s been through the same road. Clarke wonders what it would be like—to have the guts to love the strong, powerful _heda_ , without any hesitations.

(She thinks of Costia and Finn and realizes that Lexa’s hands are cursed too. Everything they touch _dies_.)

“You don’t have to go,” Lexa tells her. Her eyes are shining. “It’d be unwise and foolish and—”

“You want me to stay,” Clarke finishes and Lexa’s jaw clenches, her nostrils flaring. _Love is weakness_ , Clarke faintly remembers. “Everybody wants me to stay, Lexa, but you have to understand—if I go back, I’ll lose myself.”

Lexa’s hand twitches forward and Clarke thinks that she’s going to hold her hand but then the commander stops, draws her fingers back. Clarke ignores the pit in her stomach.

“We are what we are,” Lexa whispers, “You are a leader who has to make hard choices. It’s the same with me –it’s the same with the dead leader of the Mountain Men but that does not mean you have to lose yourself, Clarke.”

Clarke thinks back to Dante Wallace and the look in his eyes after she pulled the trigger. She knew what she had seen there—the fear of having failed his people. Clarke sees the same look in her eyes every time she looks at her reflection. She sees it in Lexa’s eyes now as well, desperation and panic mingling in the green hue and her heart aches.

“I don’t want them to see how broken I am,” Clarke murmurs and her voice is filled with barely concealed anguish and pain.

“We are all broken,” Lexa fiercely says, meeting her gaze, “and that is more reason to be whole.”

Clarke shakes her head, looking down at her feet. She thinks of Monty and of Jasper and of Raven, the rest of the remaining 40. She thinks of the haunted look in their eyes, the fire in their veins, and the bone marrow inside their skins. She thinks about how much she would give up, just for them to live.

“I bear it so they don’t have to,” she tells Lexa, the same way she told Bellamy. Dante’s words have moved up against her spine, settling against the very base of her being.

And Lexa promptly stops talking because she _knows_ and she _understands_ and she’s looking at Clarke with the softest expression on her face and Clarke thinks that maybe this is the first time Lexa’s ever looked at anybody this way since Costia.

“Take care of them,” she says, “Talk to Bellamy or Lincoln or Octavia. They’ll help—I know they will.”

Lexa’s mouth is twisted at the sides. She is standing too still, too rigid and that’s how Clarke knows that she’s steeling herself not to fall apart in front of her. Maybe she’s doing the same thing—who knows. She hasn’t gotten the chance to fully commit to a time without bloodshed.

(Her heart breaks at the thought of Lexa shouldering her responsibility—being _heda_.)

“I—” Lexa starts to say but her words get stuck in her throat and she closes her mouth instead.

“Lexa,” Clarke says, staring. She _needs_ to hear her say it.

“I will.”

Lexa’s eyes are shining once more. _Not everyone_ , she had said, back in that tent—when everything was still firmly in place _, not_ you. Clarke nods, not trusting herself to speak. She does not know how Lexa is still standing in front of her, still brimming with life, still _alive._ The gun feels utterly useless in her hand now and Clarke thinks that maybe she needs to start picking up the pieces of her humanity once more.

(She did that with her father once. And with Wells and Finn. She can do it again.)

(She can fix herself. She always has.)

“May we meet again,” she’s the one who says it this time and before Lexa can reply, she’s already turning around, gripping the handle of her gun tightly.

(Clarke doesn’t want to think about what Lexa would say— _Please don’t leave_ or _I’m sorry_ —and she doesn’t intend to find out soon.)

Lexa left Clarke to die back in that mountain, turning around and never looking back, voice unwavering and firm with Clarke weeping behind her; and Clarke leaves Lexa to live right by this riverside with one final glance and a small little smile, one that Lexa does not return.

(Maybe they’re not the same, after all.)

 

**Author's Note:**

> Send me prompts at heyasscroft.tumblr.com!


End file.
